


Limbo

by charivari



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angels, Demons, F/M, Fallen Angels, Grim Reapers, Heaven & Hell, Limbo, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:42:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5660089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charivari/pseuds/charivari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two reapers, from Heaven and Hell respectively, fall in love and are sentenced to Limbo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Limbo

They first meet during the destruction of Vesuvius. Amidst the screams and haze of ash he sees her, glowing in the darkness with her angelic light. She is here to the collect the souls of the innocent, deliver them to Heaven while he delivers the wicked into Hell. Her name is Asenath and his Belphegor, Grim Reapers of different realms. She swoops past him, illuminating him in her light, their eyes briefly lock, rattling him to his very core and beginning his obsession.

From then on he looks for her, hoping that the person he is called to perished in the vicinity of an innocent. Fortunately natural disasters do not differentiate, taking the lives of the good and the bad. When it next floods, he sees her, pulling souls from their watery graves. He watches from a distance, wary of approaching. She is Angel, able to burn him with divine light if she feels threatened. So he keeps his distance, watching, until one occasion, after a landside buries a hundred or so, he notices, as she raises the souls from the mud, her eyes flicker to him. She is watching him too.

The mutual curiosity encourages him. Years pass and he grows daring. He takes every opportunity to swoop close to her, his darkness kissing the sphere of her light. Her expression is always startled but she doesn't attack. Even when he does the obscene and winks at her during the Great Fire of London, courage bolstered from the flames that remind him of home. She dives into the closest burning building and avoids him for the rest of disaster.

She is wary of him the next time they meet, during an outbreak of plague. But his obsession has grown too great to remain distant. He follows her, chasing her above the sick beds. She finally throws a ball of light his way. It hurts but not as much as it should have, she made it purposely weak. He stops his pursuit, pleased by this development.

A revolution brings them together again. This time he plays it cooler, waving to her amidst the chorus of shouts and gunfire. She stares at him, expression strained in vexation, but then, for some inexplicable reason, she lifts her hand, briefly, then flees with her retinue of souls.

He returns to Hell gleeful, impatiently awaiting the next disaster or massacre. During their consequent meetings he is able to glean a flicker of reaction, a small smile, a ripple of her fingers, though she still keeps her distance. He respects this until his patience wear thin. They are summoned to the scene of a school massacre. He ignores the soul of the gunman who turned his weapon on himself, gliding instead towards Asenath as she gathers the souls of the victims.

She turns her gaze at his approach, tensing but holding her ground. Whether it’s an act of bravery or consent, he can't quite tell. He captures her in his arms, darkness engulfing her circle of light, lips crashing against her. She kisses him back, out of insanity, out of want, corrupted in the prison of his darkness.

The newly-deceased take advantage of such distraction and flee. When the two Reapers finally break apart, they realize their mistake. Before they can take action, fall into pursuit, they are pulled into their respective realms by unhappy masters. Belphegor is dumped in front of the Fallen's throne. Knowing the trouble he is in, he begs to find the soul he has let loose in the world, a poltergeist filled with the hatred he has carried into death.

"Enough," Lucifer booms, "You are obviously no longer fit to perform your duties, so besotted with that little Angel."

"I love her," the words fall from Bel's mouth, disgusting Lucifer who punishes him with a crippling blast of hellfire that nonetheless fails to exorcise Bel's feelings, "Let me have her, father, please."

Lucifer hits him with another agonizing wave. He has hundreds of children and isn't able to give special favor to one of them, especially when he suffers such appalling feelings of tenderness, for an Angel no less. Even if he were a more sensitive creature (unlikely) he knew the rules of Heaven and Hell, co-dependent worlds that nonetheless needed to remain separate from each other.

"Angels cannot resides in Hell, no more than demons reside in Heaven. You cannot be together..."

"There must be some way," Belphegor begs, proving he has at least inherited his father's stubbornness.

"Perhaps," Lucifer surprises Bel by saying. An idea has gripped him. He reaches upward into Heaven with his powerful mind to consult with Yahweh. His former master agrees and Lucifer's mind drifts back to Hell, where his son awaits his answer on tenterhooks, "We have reached an agreement," he tells him, "You and this - Asenath, can be together..."

"Oh thank you Father," Bel pounces to kiss the hem of his nebulous robes but is blow back by a gust of wind, tossing him into the air as a black hole forms, sucking him inside. The last thing he hears is his father's voice finishing his sentence,

"In limbo..."

There is nothing but darkness, except for the faintly pulsating light of Asenath crouched in fetal position. He floats to her, reaching, she flinches.

"This is your fault," she cries, the first words she has ever spoken to him, "You kissed me - now I'm banished."

"You kissed me back," Bel points out, angrily, then he softens. She is a broken bird, fallen from the nest and abandoned by its mother, "Look," he says, "This place can't be that bad, we're together at least."

"It's so dark," she shivers, reaching for him. He tries not to look smug as he cradles her in his embrace, "Empty."

"Not completely empty," he says, "Though it could do with some furnishings at least.

"He concentrates his power, projecting a shape, a house, out of his mind into the darkness. Its crude, nothing but white lines, like a sketch done in chalk. It's the best he can do. He opens the door to reveal blank rooms, waiting for detail.

"See," he tells Asenath, "We can make a world just for us, how we want it."

Asenath smiles. The effect is not enough to strengthen the light fading from her body, her ties to Heaven growing weaker and weaker. Bel take satisfaction from both. He doesn't care if she is Angel, only that she is his and willing to go along with what he says.

"We need a garden," she says, joining the game, raising a field of sunflowers drawn in white.

"And a bed," he dares suggestively.

Asenath hesitates, then loops her arms around his neck. She has been condemned here for all eternity, why not enjoy it. She lets Bel carry her inside and take her virginity on bed of white lines.

They are happy, at first, dividing their time between love and creation, filling the void with their constructions. But time passes, their enthusiasm wanes. They start to withdraw, from creating, from each other. They begin the roam the void, searching for some sort of exit. Failure turns to bitterness. Conversation becomes silence, their love-making less loving, clawing and biting, venting their frustration on one another.

Asenath experiences a more physical change. She no longer glows, her skin is dreary and grey, feathers brittle and flaking. She is frequently depressed, only vibrant when she snaps into anger, hitting him. He hits her back and they wrestle violently. It is the one thing that keeps them invigorated in this bleak existence, their only form of stimulation now they are completely bored with everything else.

They often pray, to their masters for reprieve, to take them from this world. They are more than ready to abandon each other. But their prayers and prostration are ignored. They remain in their black and white prison, growing bitter, more violent, until both of them are driven rather simultaneously to murder the other.

It is Asenath who succeeds, gaining the upper hand in their struggle, digging her hands, which more resemble claws, into Bel's face, gouging his eyes, beating him over and over until he finally becomes still.

Asenath pants over his corpse, slowly coming to her senses, realizing that she is now alone, completely alone. Realizing her mistake, she begins to scream, shaking Bel's body, pleading for him to stir...

Belphegor does wake, but not in her arms. He finds himself on the floor of his father's throne room, completely unharmed.

"Pathetic," his father greets him, "Letting her kill you. But at least it finally sorted the problem."

"Problem?" Bel repeats in confusion.

"Of where you two truly belong," Lucifer says, refusing to explain any further. He sends his son back to work.

Bel puts aside his confusion. He is happy to be back in Hell with the rest of his brethren, lulled by its heat and the screams of the tortured souls. Yet he thinks of Asenath constantly, first in anger, that she actually _murdered_ him. But slowly resentment fades, replaced by longing. He misses her, their fights, her body, her company. Now he is bereft, he remembers how much he loved her.

A bombing brings hope he might see her, reverted to her old form, gathering the souls of the innocent. But it is another angel he encounters, not his beloved Asenath. He hisses at her replacement who pays him no heed. He returns to Hell depressed, seeking the nearest bar and oblivion at the bottom of a glass. He is downing his third whisky when he spies her, a demoness sitting across from him, countenance familiar in spite the horns. He stumbles over, pushing her companions out of the way,

"Asenath!" he cries, "What happened, you..." he gestures at her new features.

Asenath slams back her drink aggressively,

"I fornicated with a demon, committed murder, do you really think they'd let me back in heaven," she stares bitterly into her empty glass, "Limbo was a test, to see where we both really belonged."

She is echoing his father's words and he finally understands. No doubt Yahweh and the Devil had watched their time in Limbo, monitoring their descent into madness, coming to the conclusion both deserved to reside in Hell.

Bel is more relieved than sorry for her. Now they can rebuild their relationship, in less suffocating surroundings.

"It's good to see you," he says sincerely, "Can I buy you a drink?"

Asenath sneers, then relents rather unexpectedly,

"Sure."

As soon as the bartender slides it over, she sloshes it in Bel's face. She rises with a smirk and stalks away.

Belphegor watches with a smile of his own. If he can seduce an angel, he surely win back the heart of a demoness.


End file.
